Today’s Cipher on the Wall comes to us from Corktree, today’s guest for The Exponent and Doves and Serpent Blog Swap.
Does a camera see the world as it really is? Do physical filters and lenses distort reality just as much as our completely unique and individual perspectives?
Through our mind’s eye we each see our own version of the world. In the landscape of a city, what do you see? A testament of human innovation where the possibility to interact with society is as seemingly limitless and hard to measure as the windows of the skyscrapers? Or do you see a manufactured horizon that obstructs your view of the sunset beyond?
Angles matter. Lighting matters. Shadows, perspective, focus and proximity; all combine to change what you see from one moment to the next. Take for example the image of the Camel Thorn Trees. Capturing an image on film isn’t a guarantee that the world sees what you see; it merely insures that an irreproducible moment in time is held captive waiting for validation and interpretation.
But that’s not all. There’s the added trouble of whether or not the snapshot in your own head matches the one that you snag from the moment you’re in with the click of a button. How often does what you see in front of you end up in the digital reel of your point n’ shoot? How often is the way you see yourself reflected in the vision of others?
We walk around life with the most advanced and sophisticated viewing equipment (organic and bio-available!), and yet we cannot immortalize or share adequately the movie that we are creating each moment with those around us. A veritable art film exists within the folds of our prefrontal cortex, recorded through eyes that process beauty in even the dimmest of scenes.
Photography changes the way we engage with the world. Contemplative or not, it can show us things we wouldn’t see on our own. Moments too quick to digest, angles we couldn’t have seen from where we stood. It seems fitting that the most pivotal moments of earth and humanity’s history occurred before the invention of film. What would our faith be with visual evidence? Would the characters that define our religions be easier to believe in or would seeing their actual faces reproduced en masse hide them from us further?
Consider for a moment what it means to see. To truly see without the filters that we place between ourselves and real perception. How does the world look to you? Imagine a photo of the earth in all its blue and green glory. Is it a scary place on which we all must find a safe corner? A sphere of endless adventure and learning? A marble in a giant cosmic game? What about the people on it? When you see pictures of fellow humans across the planet in a copy of National Geographic, do you see any part of yourself reflected? Can you picture yourself in front of or behind that camera?
We see the world that is apart from us through telescopic lenses. Distance is crucial to our framework of comfort and convenience, and we assume that our way of seeing is fundamentally different from those so far away. But it’s no more different than that of those right next to us. We’re all stuck trying to project our view of reality, and in the grand golden rule book, it appears we should be allowing others the space to do so as well.
Miksang is the tibetan word for “Good Eye”. It is also an institute for the art of contemplative photography; a way of engaging with reality in an attempt to be more free with what we encounter. ” When we synchronize eye and mind, we abandon all concepts and predispositions and become completely present in the moment.” Is it possible to accurately show others what you see? Perhaps. Is it possible to see the world as it really is? I hope so.
For more images of contemplative photography, go here.
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Wow! Corktree, I love this (as you can see above, I had a hard time picking what struck me the most). This is a topic I think about a great deal, but usually in terms of narrative — the way we structure the narratives we tell about ourselves, our lives and the other people in them. But there is something very powerful about understanding vision, framing and perspective — the “good eye” — in the way you’ve described it. This gets to the heart of why I love art, because it allows me a taste of how the world looks from where someone else is standing. I find there is never an end to how little I’ve seen and understood.
Thank you Heidi! Art became much more interesting for me when I started to see it that way too. Imagining that someone might see the world in the way they show me, even abstractly is fascinating.
Corktree, thank you. “Good Eye” is also a term one hears endlessly repeated at Little League Baseball games, most often pronounces “g’dye.” It’s a form of encouragement to a batter who may have swung wildly at a pitch but recognized that the pitch was hittable — that it was in the strike zone. It’s a moment of agreement between people who share the value and opportunity in a single, framed event and instinctually celebrate it with a chant: “Good Eye!”
I love what you’re saying here. There is truly so much more that we hold in common. Or, even if not … it’s the things that we value in common. These are a treasure to outweigh the vast collection of things we see differently.
Thanks Matt. It’s interesting to consider what values we transmit through what we show others we see.
I love me some Cipher on a Wall :) What a great post Corktree, sorry I didn’t comment earlier.
I sometimes feel like all of my life has been seen from behind some kind of photographer’s lens. I think that is what I had to do to survive for a while. And now it’s a sometimes-bad habit. The approach of “amateur psychologist” or amateur whatever, is very useful, and sometimes really helps. But coming out from behind the camera to actually live in the moment has been very meaningful for me (especially with the help of yoga and mindfulness).
Thanks K! I know what you mean by seeing life that way, and I do think it is a coping mechanism. It can feel very exposed and yet very freeing to step out from behind the camera and not care about what the shot looks like for a moment.
I read a great description of clinging the other day that I think applies to the idea of how we use the camera (or art or religion) to frame our experiences without getting stuck behind the photographer’s lens. In Dancing with LIfe Phillip Moffitt describes a teaching of Ajahn Sumedho:
I am thinking about how I can apply this to the insights in Corktree’s post, how I can contemplate different ways of framing the world and percieving experiences without getting stuck or too attached to one particular view. Perhaps this is like thinking of the difference between candid natural shots that capture one moment from one angle and a carefully posed and airbrushed portrait.
I really love that description of how we can let go of things; very useful and illustrative. Thank you for sharing!